A guide to earning money with user-generated content. Learn how to set monetary goals with brands, negotiate the difference between paid deals and free products, and understand your value as a creator.
I think that everyone has different goals, different monetary goals. Some people need money right now. Some people will be okay with getting free products. So I think knowing what your goal is, in the beginning, for me, I didn't want to waste time. I wanted to get paid right away. And that's exactly what happened. So setting a goal is so important as, you know, with anything in life. So, number one, doing that. And then, you know, there are companies that really only have the budget because every company's budget is so different. Right. So some companies that you reach out to maybe, like, we only do. We only have our affiliate program, so we can send you free products. You can post the link and we'll. We'll get you an affiliate link. Right? Tons of companies only do that maybe, or they're only doing that when you reach out to them, depending on, like, the quarter, their budget, how much budget they've used. Other companies will, you know, say, yes, we can send you the free products. We just want content in. In exchange for free products. That is okay if you want to start out that way. I have so many of my students who are very intimidated by the whole process where they don't quite feel worthy of even getting paid yet. And my mom was almost kind of in that same bucket where she was like, I'm in my 60s. I'm just doing. I'm just randomly doing UGC because I think it'll be fun and I don't need the money. And if I do want a product and they're going to send it to me for free, and I can get practice and kind of get better at content creation by just getting the product for free. I'm okay with that. And some people are okay with that. So again, knowing what your goal is, do you want to accept free, like, gifted exchanges, you know, free products in exchange for content? You. Yes or no? If it's a no, then you're either gonna want to, you know, really be okay and, like, start getting comfortable negotiating and being okay with saying, okay, this isn't the right brand for me to spend energy and, like, focus on right now. I'm gonna move on to the next brand who is gonna be willing to pay me at least, you know, $200, 100, $150 for a video. Right. And so I think it's. It's kind of a mixed bag. But having a goal and then knowing what your monetary goal is, like, for, you know, month one. And then also, don't be afraid to.
